


i forget where we were

by torchsong (brella)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: College, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 04:47:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13674564
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brella/pseuds/torchsong
Summary: Tadashi, Kei, and a silence on a train.





	i forget where we were

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Marks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marks/gifts).



> Happy Valentine's Day, Marks!! I discovered Haikyuu only very recently, and I absolutely adored these two, so I gravitated toward your letter instantly as treat fodder. I hope you can forgive my novice attempt, haha. Thanks for the inspiration and for your many, many great Haikyuu fics, which kept me entertained in my spare moments during my recent move! I hope you have a wonderful day! <3

The sun is setting when the train comes out of the tunnel. It grazes the Tokyo skyline as it recedes into the distance in a full, vibrant pink, shimmering dreamlike in the late summer heat. Tadashi watches it, trying to pinpoint Tsukki's apartment building among the clutter, even though he knows it's impossible to see from here, even though Tsukki is right next to him. 

He glances, without moving his head, over the bridge of his nose, to where Tsukki is slumped in his seat, eyes closed, arms crossed at his stomach. Periodically they will shift with the rise and fall of his chest, and the rustle of the material of his dark purple windbreaker mingles with the faint sound of his breathing. 

Tadashi wonders if this is yet another thing he knows about Tsukki that no one else does—that he always falls asleep on train rides. Car rides, too, but not quite as often.

In passing, he has explained that it's the way everything sounds the same from inside of a vehicle, the way it feels like you're suspended. The total unawareness of your own velocity.

Tadashi has never been able to sleep in anything that isn't a bed or a futon, and definitely not at any hour that isn't after 9 PM—certain bus rides after matches were an exception, but maybe that had just been a combination of strangely comforting factors: the familiar pace Coach Ukai's voice from the front passenger seat and the intermittent responses from Takeda-sensei; the way certain words, like “proud,” like “amazing,” had been so clear, even over the white noise of the engine. 

The train car, empty save for an old woman seven rows in front of them, knitting fastidiously, is illuminated in the last of the day's sunlight, and Tadashi is wide awake, fingers drumming against his knees, heart pulled taut in his throat.

He probably wouldn't have let Tsukki fall asleep, if he'd had any choice in the whole thing, but then again, he thinks with a surge of guilt, that's kind of a selfish way of thinking, isn't it, after Tsukki agreed to go out of his way and ride the train all the way to Sendai just so Tadashi wouldn't have to go it alone, just so—

"Well," Tadashi had said, eyes on his shoes as he walked, fingers wrung haphazardly together, "I guess I just—I mean—I just can't believe I'm already going back tomorrow, you know?"

"You've been here a week," Tsukki had said in his usual deadpan, not cruel or resentful, just direct. There had been a receipt Tadashi had seen crumpled up next to the wastebasket in the bathroom, and he hadn't really been able to help looking at it; it had been for the purchase of an expensive air mattress, the very one he had been sleeping on, and it had been dated the day he had asked Tsukki if maybe, possibly, he could come to see him over the summer break. 

"No, yeah, I know!" Tadashi had spluttered out, at a total loss for where all of this tension had suddenly come from, and for how to deal with the fact that it was making his voice sound about two octaves higher than was strictly normal or dignified. "I just mean..." 

What he had meant was, of course,  _I just mean I'm going to miss you; I'm going to go back to missing you, back to feeling half-made without you, back to walking out the door every morning feeling like I forgot something important_.

But he hadn’t said what he meant. It hadn’t surprised him. 

And then, after a moment, Tsukki had pushed his glasses up his slim nose with two fingers and mumbled, "Want me to ride back with you?" 

Tadashi hadn't really known what to say to that. In the days and weeks and months since he and Tsukki had split off to different universities, Tsukki to Todai and Tadashi to Tohokudai, words had seemed to clutter up inside of him, as if stopped by a dam or wall, no longer flowing as they used to. He had used the old nickname only a handful of times, feeling increasingly embarrassed with each, but now it slipped through the barrier, soft and bewildered, as he stopped in his tracks.

"Tsukki...?" 

Tsukki had continued only a few paces ahead of him, and then he had stopped, too. His head was bowed, and his hands were in the pockets of his jeans. He still had the same haircut as he had at Karasuno, and the blonde strands were curled at the nape of his neck, catching the light of a streetlamp as it flickered on in the dusk.

It had been hot, and Tadashi had been sweating, heart throbbing dully away in his chest, fatigued by the old emotions that spurred it: disbelief, and hope, and an unshakable desire to take Tsukki's hand in his and not let go for anything. 

That same desire opens in him now, on the train, despite his efforts. He lets his elbow gently nudge Tsukki's until he stirs with a mumble, brown eyes blinking sleepily. The sun has slipped out of view, and only the twilight remains, a frail in-between, a question. 

"Sorry, Tsukki," Tadashi says, quietly, even though he really, really isn’t. 

Tsukki shakes his head and rubs at one eye, pushing his glasses off-center, and when he does, his arm brushes Tadashi's.

He lets out a noise through his nose that sounds like a laugh, and with a wry, elusive smile, he says, "'Don't mind.'"


End file.
